Merkel, Hollande offer rhetoric, not reality

The first joint appearance by the leaders of France and Germany at the European Parliament since the fall of the Berlin Wall was meant to offer the beleaguered union a new vision.

Instead, Angela Merkel and François Hollande unwittingly presented a stark reminder of why the EU, in the words of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, “is not in a good state.”

Far from the blueprint for Europe’s future, the two leaders offered little more than old hat.

With a pair of speeches almost identical in tone and scope, they relied on familiar rhetoric about the necessity for “more Europe,” peppering their remarks with dire warnings that the EU could disintegrate if members don’t accept deeper integration.

The underlying message was that Europe needs saving not because the future is bright, but because the alternative is worse.

“The debate is not between the less or more Europe,” Hollande said. “It’s between the strengthening of Europe or the end of Europe. Yes, the end of Europe, the return to national borders, the abandonment of the euro.”

Merkel echoed that same theme, insisting that Europe “has not brought us lower, it has lifted us up.”

“The debate is not between the less or more Europe,” Hollande said. “It’s between the strengthening of Europe or the end of Europe.

Trouble is, fewer and fewer Europeans are buying it.

As Europe confronts an array of crises, from the economic to the humanitarian, the EU has proved incapable of meeting the challenge.

Brussels blames the member states for a failure to find consensus on the balance between national sovereignty and deeper integration.

France and Germany, for example, both profess a commitment to overhauling the eurozone to tie members closer together and, in Merkel’s words, “repair” its architecture. But even after Greece and the broader debt crisis, they remain miles apart on the details.

Even with more than one million refugees expected to try to reach Europe this year, members are unable to even agree on a unified asylum policy, not to mention a quota system.

The disconnect between rhetoric and reality was on full display during Hollande’s speech. He stressed the importance of more solidarity in dealing with the refugee crisis even though his own government has only agreed to take in a token number of asylum seekers.

Europe has long been divided by such disputes. Yet in the past, a spirit of common purpose and commitment to a set of values prevailed.

Wednesday’s session in Strasbourg — a commemoration of the joint appearance by Francois Mitterand and Helmut Kohl in 1989 — was an attempt to revive that feeling.

Back then, the Iron Curtain was falling, German reunification was in the air and the Cold War was ending. The French, in particular, viewed the expansion and deepening of Europe as essential for stability.

“Europe’s political development needs to be planned, strengthened and accelerated,” Mitterand said. “That is the only answer to the challenge we face.”

For past generations, in particular those scarred by the war and its aftermath, the attractions of European integration were obvious. But that romantic ideal of Europe as a bastion of peace has faded.

Today, Europeans want action, not flowery rhetoric.

The EU is beset by divisions over everything from the euro to the Ukraine. It has been caught flat-footed by the refugee crisis and appears to have no strategy for keeping the restive U.K. in the union.

What’s missing, critics say, is convincing leadership.

When Mitterand and Kohl met in Strasbourg, the Franco-German partnership was the motor that drove integration forward.

No more.

France lacks the economic clout to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Germany. Hollande, France’s least popular leader since the war, doesn’t have the political capital to define a vision for the rest of Europe.

As Merkel has recently discovered in the refugee crisis, Germany, despite its economic power, still lacks the moral sway to rally the rest of Europe behind it.

Some warn that the centrifugal forces battering Europe could tear the EU apart.

But such concerns aren’t new.

“There’s no single answer to the questions we face,” Mitterand said in his 1989 speech. “In short, things will be more complex.”

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BH

Europe doesn’t work because democratic socialism doesn’t work. They simply can’t get 300 million people from all those different countries to agree on a common set of rules. They never will. The only way to make Europe work is to appoint a dictator to make the tough decisions. They will have to give up all of what’s left of their freedom to make it work.

With each crisis, in the last few decades EU leaders have been crying for more Europe and deeper integration. It will come. Merkel and Hollande’s revival of the Franco/German axis will no doubt help it along.

Posted on 10/8/15 | 5:45 AM CEST

ironwoker

Hollande as usual speaks gibberish with a solemn voice, his real opinion doesn’t matter anyway. Every time when Mekel want to achieve something ( usually against other nations will ), she pushes Hollande with his solemn gibberish in the light spot to create the appearance of “european”consensus.

There is now in Europe a coalition of forces that pull towards real european solutions forces are present in the national and civil society governments agree with the New Union of European federalists states

If France is in a dependent situation today is due to poor policies that are conducted.Marine Le Pen isentirely right: François Hollande is “the vice-chancellor of the province France” in Europe.

Posted on 10/8/15 | 3:20 PM CEST

JGinNJ

As someone else has pointed out here Europe doesn’t work because democratic socialism doesn’t work. Too much ruling from afar – with countless details and regulations, supporting a faceless mass of parasitic office workers who are neither elected nor accountable. The answer is Freedom. More of it. From government, in particular.

Posted on 10/8/15 | 5:31 PM CEST

AttilasDaughter

Germany has 16 states and 7 of them will have state elections next year starting in March.
If Merkel makes it to next year her party will pay for her decisions.
I read the comments of some German news papers (Zeit, Welt) and the people are very angry.
Merkel has no mandate for what she’s doing and she will not last.
France has economic problems.
Just like for Greece the EURO is not the right currency for the performance.
Hollandes position will get weaker every year.
Time to buy popcorn, I never supported the EURO and the EU has become a nightmare.

Posted on 10/9/15 | 6:00 AM CEST

Draci

The EU has never been a viable proposition. Nothing good has come out of it just a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money and a huge amount of useless expensive bureaucrats. The sooner the EU collapses the better.

Posted on 10/9/15 | 7:35 AM CEST

Theo

An excellent analysis. What the EU needs is a vision, real-politik and free decision making, not socialism or actions driven by a 2nd world war- and a socialist guilt complex.

Posted on 10/9/15 | 9:47 AM CEST

Alan Ritchie

Lets face it, Hollande will be a one term president & will be replaced by a right-winger- if not Le Pen by someone who will have adopted much of the NF policies /rhetoric. Merkel will not survive any significant law & order crisis sparked in Germany (& Bavaria especially) attributable to he presence of migrants – one big riot will bring her down

Posted on 10/9/15 | 10:08 AM CEST

TGM

EU doesn’t work because socialism doesn’t work. And last but not least: because the leadership of EU is grossly incompetent, undemocratic and ideologically blind. And full of hypocrisy when it comes to its elites.

The Merkels, Hollandes, Junckers and Schmidts somehow forget that with “power” comes responsibility. Like all dictators and rulers like to play it.

But do not despair.

The end of current EU is not and end of Europe. Not at all. It is a chance to build better Europe this time wiser from all the bad lessons of past centuries.

europe will never work because my country, France, like other claims its national roots.

Posted on 10/10/15 | 3:32 AM CEST

ville vittumainen

In every crisis there are always loud voices of the apocalypse. Like here in the comments section. In reality a crisis forces upon a solution, and situation improves. Crisis is almost always a good thing.

Posted on 10/10/15 | 1:48 PM CEST

Gert

@TGM: Can you please explain how you do see this ‘better Europe’? I hope you don’t mean going back to the old completely independent nation-states of Europe. That has always been both the weakness of the continent, and a source of endless wars. Especially against other large blocks as the USA, China, Russia, even India with a population over 1 billion, a separated Europe will be lost in a globalized world.